


Sudden Glow

by nothing_but_a_pastel_fanboy



Category: South Park
Genre: Craig is a sap, Family Bonding, Fluff and Mush, M/M, Summer, and then he's sweet again, craig is mean for like one second, craigs dad likes to pick on him, there's some humor, tweek has a mini anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 15:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12171558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_but_a_pastel_fanboy/pseuds/nothing_but_a_pastel_fanboy
Summary: Tweek fears that he and Craig will forget their last summer vacation of their high school careers. So he and Craig do what any normal 16 year olds would do. They ask Tweek's dad for his credit card and completely redo Craig's room.





	Sudden Glow

**Author's Note:**

> This took me so freaking long to finish. Put It Down actually kicked my butt into gear to pick it back up.  
> Come talk to me about creek on tumblr! nothing-but-a-pastel-van! (Sorry, I can't figure out how to hyperlink here)

Craig didn’t really realize it until Tweek flopped onto his bed one afternoon in near panic. "Craig, we haven't done anything interesting at all this summer!" He yelled. "What if we forget this summer entirely?" His reasoning surprised Craig. He never thought that Tweek would care for the sentimental value of junior-senior year summer vacation. He couldn’t argue that they hadn’t done anything remotely interesting, unless hanging out at each others houses and working at the coffee shop are considered interesting. He tried to think of something interesting that they have done over the past two months. Nothing. They didn't go to Tokens only party of the summer because they both had to work the graveyard shift, Clyde's birthday had been small and uneventful, and Jimmy's birthday hadn't been much different.

The two of them started bouncing ideas back and forth, not really being all that creative. "You could dye your hair like, silver or something." Craig suggested offhandedly. 

"Maybe, I don't know if employees are allowed to dye their hair though. I'll check." Craig probably looked like a gaping fish for how loud Tweek laughed at his reaction. He didn't honestly think that Tweek would consider dyeing his hair, let alone a color like silver. The color would definitely suit his personality. Craig thought.

"What if we redecorated one of our rooms?" Tweek suggested. Craig raised a brow, unsure of the extent that the blond would want to redecorate their rooms to. "Like, new paint, bedding, maybe even a new carpet. Let's go the whole nine yards!" Only when the noiret opened his mouth to protest, did Tweek explain his reasoning. "Our rooms have stayed the same since we were in elementary school asides from getting bigger beds when we needed them. They're to ours parent's tastes, not ours, Craig." Who was Craig to argue with those facts. "Hey, maybe I could finally get those glow stars that I wanted when I was ten.” The noiret joked. Tweek smiled back at him widely. 

“Yes. We will get you those glow stars and they will shine all of your favorite constellations every night just for you.” He replied overdramatically, kissing all over his boyfriend's face. Craig laughed and caught the blond's lips in a chaste kiss.

They decided that it would be best to get started sooner rather than later and went to the local Home Depot. In the car Tweek decided that Craig needed galaxy splatter painted walls and Craig couldn't agree more. He handed his phone off to Tweek to look through photos of galaxies online to decide on what colors they needed. Tweek looked for ones with the fewest colors possible while still looking cool. When they got to the parking lot he showed Craig the chosen galaxy and they went off to the paint department to get the colors matched, as well as some blue black paint for the base of the galaxy and primer to cover up the old paint. While they waited for the paint to finish being mixed Tweek and Craig split up to find the perfect carpet for the room. About five minutes later Tweek got a text from Craig, a selfie of him smirking next to a dark blue carpet. He made his way over to the next aisle to where Craig stood, talking to an employee about getting the carpet delivered to his house, Tweek noticed that the carpet was an exact match to the can of paint in his hand. He gave Craig a mental pat on the back, also making a note to do it in real life after the employee left. On the way back too the paint department, Tweek grabbed a few sets of goggles incase they get paint in their eyes. After a few tries they ended up with five other colors of paint that are guaranteed to show up on a dark background. They looked around the store for a while more, trying to see if they could find any glow stars or bedding. With no luck after twenty minutes and sore arms they paid for the paint and let the delivery guy follow them home so that he could drop the carpet off.

Grateful that his parents were at work and Ruby elsewhere Craig and Tweek dragged the carpet to the stairs leaving it there while they moved everything from Craig's room to the spare room that Tweek was supposed to stay in. They started with Craig's bed, moving the mattress and box spring first before taking the frame of it. Once that was done, they moved the desk and then stripes cage. Tweek took a short break to give stripe a carrot for her troubles. if he noticed Craig taking photos, then he didn’t say anything. After they had most of Craig's furniture moved: the bean bags that everyone in their group has at their house to keep some semblance of order, his tv, and a standing lamp, they only had the dresser left.

Moving the dresser would have been uneventful if they hadn't realized they nothing to grab onto on it. They had to turn it at an angle so that it would fit through the doorway and into the hall. As Tweek rounded the corner out of the room and into the hall his finger got caught between the dresser and door frame. He yelped in pain, pulling his hand out and dropping the heavy piece of furniture onto his foot. Craig dropped his end and rushed over to the blond, ”Tweek! are you alright? Do you think it’s broken?” He bombarded his boyfriend with questions about his well being, not really helping him as he didn't remove the heavy piece of wooden furniture from his foot. “Shit! I should get this off of your foot.” He got down and leveled his hands under one of the corners just enough for Tweek to move his foot from underneath. Craig pulled his hands out from under the corner quickly as Tweek pushed his hands into the side of the dresser to slow the fall of it. He and Craig turn the dresser around the corner to lift it once more. They got it into the spare room without any more events or injuries.

With all of the furniture moved, they set out to find some bedding and glow stars. Tweek insisted that Craig needed either alien or UFO printed bedding and wouldn’t settle for anything else. (“Craig, this room is supposed to represent everything that you like. You can’t just not have aliens and UFOs all over the place.”) They gave up on Walmart when they couldn't find any printed bedding. When Craig asked someone about glow stars, She looked at him as if he grew three more heads. After asking a few other people and trying to find the stars in the the local craft shop, it was decided that they would have to go to Denver to find them and appropriate bedding.

They called their parents to let them know about where they were going so that there wouldn’t be a search party waiting for them when they got back and then set up a playlist for the drive. The drive to the state capital always seemed to go by faster when it was just the two of them, but it was still a long drive nonetheless. Tweek always prefered to try and get some extra sleep on longer rides ever since his insomnia started letting up. Craig was a near silent driver, only speaking up to tell how much longer the ride would be or to hum along with a song that he liked. The two of them agreed that Craig prefered music while driving and Tweek had trouble sleeping with noise, that they would make a mixtape of all of Tweek's favorite songs that Craig wouldn’t mind having on repeat either. What they ended up with was a playlist full of Coldplay, The Match Five, some of Avril Lavigne’s calmer songs, and some other miscellaneous ballads from various artists. They would let it play throughout the drive on a low volume, Tweek nodding off and Craig humming to it. By the time the playlist looped back to the beginning they would be at the Denver Mall and Tweek would wake up, feeling the car’s engine cut.

It was about eight when they finally got where they were going and Tweek was awake enough to walk. They stopped by a Starbucks and got something light to eat and coffee for Tweek. They ventured into a few different stores looking for bedding that was up to their standards. Tweek found a set that had green alien heads all over it, but it wasn’t soft enough for Craig's tastes. Craig found a blanket set that had UFOs abducting cows all over it, but couldn't find the matching sheets or any that were close enough in color. After a few more tries Craig found the perfect, complete set. It had a realistic galaxy as the background with green cartoon aliens poking their heads out of their UFOs patterned onto it. It even had a matching set to cover bean bags with placed right next to it. It was practically yelling at them to buy it, so they did.

The next stop was a craft store since it seemed like the most likely place to find the stars. The closest one was only across the street and looked massive. “Babe, if that place doesn’t have glow stars then they don't exist anymore and we go home, okay?” Craig reasoned. It didn't seem far off either, the building looked almost as big as their high school. They ventured in and searched for an employee to ask. They ended up walking around aimlessly for 15 minutes before they found someone. “Hi,” Craig started, trying not to seem like to much of a first time customer and annoy her. “Do you happen to have any glow in the dark stars here?”

“Oh, do you mean the ones that stick onto walls and ceilings?” She asked, gauging what they needed easily. “We have regular stickers or the plastic ones.” She led them in the direction of what they assumed was the glow stars that they needed.

“Plastic ones might be better.” Craig suggested, politely declining the paper stickers.

“In that case, you might also like ones that come with the adhesive on them already, right?” She asked, reaching for a bucket of the stars in question.

“Y-yeah. Those will be great.” Tweek stuttered out, never wanting to appear as rude by not speaking at all. He grabbed another bucket of larger stars to symbolize the brighter stars in the constellations, as well as a second bucket of the smaller stars. She took them to a register to ring them up. After they finished what they needed to do in Denver, the couple set on their way back to South Park. Craig turned the playlist back on and Tweek settled into the passenger's seat once more, already preparing to try and sleep some more.

They were almost home when Tweek shook awake, confused at why the playlist was still on. "I decided to stop so that we could get something to eat." Craig explained as the blond woke up. Taking a glance at the clock on the dash of Craig's car, Tweek gathered that it was around 11.30. He groggily followed his boyfriend into the diner and sat up at the counter, resting his chin in his hand. "What can I get for you boys?" Tweek startled a bit, almost expecting no one to take their order. He looked up at a older man, probably in his mid-forties, with ram horns tattooed across both of his upper arms. Tweek couldn't help but wonder if he knew Damien or his father, Satan. He figured that he should probably answer him with an order, not wanting to annoy him. 

"I'll have the same thing as him." He responded, hoping that Craig had already answered.

"Alrighty, two grilled cheeses coming up!" The tattooed man responded as he walked over to the grill.

Craig had started talking to the cook about why they were out so late. The old man had laughed when Craig explained the reason for the sudden urge to redecorate, stealing a glance at Tweek. The blond had drifted back to daydreaming, not interested in the conversation at the moment. "Your friend alright?" The cook asked.

"Yeah, judging by the expression. I think he's daydreaming." The noiret responded, looking at Tweek, a small smile on both of their faces.

"You two must be pretty close if you can read his expressions and know what goes on in his head."

"Inseparable since fourth grade." Craig quipped back, taking a sip of his coffee.

"You two are pretty lucky, to have a friendship like that." The cook took out two styrofoam containers and placed their grilled cheeses inside. "Here are your sandwiches. Have fun redoing your room." Tweek shook out of his reverie and grabbed their boxes as Craig paid.

The couple walked back out to Craig's car slowly, Tweek ready to fall back asleep and Craig just keeping pace with him. After sliding into their seats and buckling their seat belts, Craig started the car again. The two of them ate in relative silence as they continued back to South Park. Tweek fell back asleep almost immediately after finishing his grilled cheese. Craig chuckled at him when he noticed, taking the styrofoam box and placing it the back with his.

By the time Craig pulled into the driveway of his home it was almost one AM. He decided to bring everything inside and then wake Tweek up. He brought the bedding and glow stars to his temporary room since they wouldn’t need them when they were repainting. As he passed by the new carpet that he had left in the living room, he saw one of Ruby's many sticky notes on it. 'What the fuck are you doing with this carpet and why is all your shit in the spare room? p.s. I fed Stripe' Craig rolled his eyes at his sister, although he was grateful that she fed Stripe.

He continued on his way out to his car and woke Tweek up. He gently shook the blond, trying not to startle him. Tweek still jolted awake, confused and in a defensive position. Once he realized that it was only Craig he relaxed again, leaning out of the car and onto the noiret. "Tweek, come on." Craig tried to coax him to walk up to the room. "Great, I'm carrying dead weight up the stairs aren't I?" Craig complained, mostly to himself. He carefully pulled Tweek's legs out of the car, looping one of his arms under the smaller's knees and the other against his back. Once he was sure that he wouldn't drop him, Craig started back up the driveway, hip checking the car door shut.

After spending nearly fifteen minutes trying to get up the stairs as quietly as possible, Craig finally got Tweek up the stairs. He continued down the hall to the guest bedroom and realized that he forgot to leave the door open. He looked around to make sure that no one was around to see and set Tweek down on the hallway carpet so that he didn't drop him. After the door was opened he tried to pick Tweek back up. It was harder for him this time around because the blond had his back flat against the ground. Craig tried to roll him onto his side gently as not to wake him up, but Tweek's eyes squinted open at the movement. "Sorry, I had to put you down to open the door." Craig quickly apologized once Tweek realized where he was. Tweek just sat up slightly and brought his knees up to make it easier for Craig to pick him up. The noiret quietly laughed and slid his hands back under the shorter boy's body.

Once he had gotten Tweek into the room and onto the bed, Craig crawled in after him. The blond immediately turned towards him and curled up against his body, his head between Craig's neck and shoulder. Craig couldn't help but smile at the short blond, gently placing a kiss on the crown of his head and whispering a goodnight into his hair.

The next morning as Craig and Tweek head downstairs to grab coffee, they passed by the living room and saw Mr. Tucker looking really confused. "Boys," He started off, making both Tweek and Craig nervous. "Why is there a carpet on the carpet, what are you doing with it, when did you buy it, and whose money did you use?" The two teenagers looked at each other, each silently begging the other to say something. In the end it was decided that Tweek would explain.

"Sir, we went out and bought the carpet yesterday as part of our project to redo Craig's room, it stayed down here because we couldn't fit it into the spare room and we are repainting Craig's room today; also, my dad let me use his credit card to pay for this project after we explained our motives, plans, and reasoning." Tweek took a few seconds to catch his breath after such a long sentence said in only one. Mr. Tucker looked genuinely impressed at how the blond had said it so eloquently in just one breath. "Okay, carry on." Was the only response he could manage to come up with.

Craig sat down at the dining room table while waiting for Tweek to finish making their coffee. The older boy couldn't believe how elegant the blond made even the most mundane tasks seem. Tweek practically danced around the kitchen while getting out the creamer, sugar, and cups. He held the coffee pot high away from the cups and then did the same with the creamer before he gently stirred sugar into each cup. Once he finished Craig half expected Tweek to take a bow instead of walking passed him, setting his cup of the warm drink down beside him as he walked past. "Come on, dreamer." Tweek joked over his shoulder. "We have to sweep the floor and wash the walls before we can start painting and putting in the carpet."

After thirty minutes of watching Tweek wash the walls as he swept, Craig could easily say that "on a mission Tweek" was his favorite Tweek. The blond stood up on a step stool just so that he could ensure that the walls were entirely clean, going from the top to the bottom, and then wiping up the baseboards. The look of absolute concentration on the blond's face had Craig leaning over more than a few times to kiss him, distracting Tweek away from what he was doing just enough to annoy him. Tweek yelled at him more than a couple of times, hostility absent. "Craig! I'm trying to work here, you dingus!"

When they finally finished cleaning, Tweek laid down a tarp and brought out the base blue paint. it didn’t take them nearly as long as they thought it would or nearly as much paint. Tweek thought that they might have had to paint two coats to completely cover the previous green color. When they were waiting for the next four hours for the paint to completely dry, Craig suggested painting the furniture with the remaining dark blue paint. Once Tweek agreed they made their way over to the spare room and started to take everything apart piece by piece and paint it. Craig asked Ruby if she could keep stripe in her room for the day to keep him away from the fumes, and after twenty bucks, she did.

They painted pieces of furniture as they took them apart, starting with the bed, then Craig's dresser drawers, the dresser, and then his desk and tv stand. By the time they finished painting the tv stand, Craig's bed was ready to be put back together. They decided to leave the drawers out of the dresser to make it easier for them to move it back into Craig's room. After the furniture was all repainted, the two of them went back over to Craig's real room to start splatter painting the walls.

Tweek looked over at the other five gallons of paint. "Maybe we should ask your parents and Ruby to help us?" He asked.

"Maybe, I don't know why they wouldn't want to fling paint around a room. It might be really good stress reliever."

Craig went down stairs to the living room to ask his parents if they wanted to help while Tweek went across the hall to Ruby's room to ask her. After the two of them received three yes's, everyone met back up in Craig's room. After looking at the paint colors in front of him, Mr. Tucker made a note of just how bright the colors were. "Son, you have light pink, purple, blue, orange paint as the majority. The only color that doesn't make this room look like a vampire's attempt at a nursery is the day glo green."

Tweek couldn’t help but laugh as Craig quickly whipped out his phone to show the reference photo ("Tweek picked it out!") to his father. "I hope that the colors all mix together a bit, so maybe we can get something close to this." Mr. Tucker nodded, still slightly skeptical of his son's reasoning, but going along with it regardless. With the plan mapped out, Ruby started prying the lids open with a screwdriver. After she distributed the paint colors to everyone else they got to work on flinging the paint from their brushes and onto the walls. At one point Tweek grabbed two brushes and flung both the green and blue colors at the same time and left some pretty cool streaks on the wall. Craig decided that would be where his bed went so the colors could frame it.

After they finished going through all of the paint, Mr. Tucker suggested that they went out to KFC for lunch. With a complete disregard for the fact that they were all covered in a rainbow of colors, the group piled into Mr. Tucker's car to make their way across town. Once they arrived, they were politely asked if they can not sit on the furniture in case they stain it. Thankfully, everyone in the Tucker-Tweek party saw it as a reasonable request and got their food to go.

Once the family arrived home Craig thanked his them for their help before he and Tweek went upstairs. He figured that the paint wouldn't have been dry by then so he and Tweek ate in the spare room. By the time they finish eating and rewatching a season of Red Racer, Tweek suggests that one of them go and check if the paint is dry. When he lost rock, paper, scissors, he lifted himself up from off of the bed and moved to exit the room. Before he opened the door to leave though, Craig had rolled to edge of the bed closest to the door and grabbed one of Tweek's belt loops. He pulled him back to the bed and kissed the blond's newly exposed hip. "Love you, Honey." Tweek rolled his eyes, but still smiled.

"Craig, you're being sappy." He pointed out.

"And how does that make you feel, Babe?"

Tweek chuckled and pulled himself away from the older boy, blowing him a kiss as he walked out the door. Craig faintly heard Ruby whine about them being gross and laughed. "Shut the fuck up Craig!" He laughed some more at her.

"Just wait until you're in love Rube, just you wait." He hollered after her.

Tweek came back in chuckling, something Ruby did probably. She was known to over react when she wanted to.

"Get up," Tweek ordered. "The paint's dry and I want to get the stars up tonight. They need sunlight to charge." With that Craig rolled himself off the bed and onto the floor. Once he was up, he grabbed his standing lamp, easily moving around Tweek. Tweek caught on and took the matteress off of the bed to make the frame lighter, while he was at it, he changed the sheets to Craig's new ones. By the time Tweek was done, Craig had come back, ready to help move the mattress and box spring back to his own room. Once those were in they turned the frame of the bed on its side to slide it through the door. "You know what, Babe? I'm really glad that I don't have a head board." Craig said conversationally, trying to bring up where the bed would go and hopefully fluster the younger.

"Yeah, I'm sure Ruby is too, son." Craig's faced reddened to a bright tomato shade.

"Dad! I'm trying to be smooth here!" He yelled at his father. 

Tweek took a break from laughing himself into stitches to join in on the fun the was teasing Craig Tucker into hiding in the nearest room. "Not with that voice I hope?" Craig flipped them both off, getting a bird in return from each other person in the hall. He grabbed his side of the frame and yanked it across and into his room, making Tweek nearly fall. "Gah! Craig what if I cracked my skull off the edge of this thing and all the pressure was released from it and my brain exploded!"

Craig quickly saw his error and nearly lept over the metal bed frame before remembering that he could slot himself through it. Mr. Tucker, never knowing what to do when Tweek went into a panic, backed away from the scene with a worried look on his face. Craig grabbed Tweek's shoulders, then set his hands on either side of the blond's neck, before sliding them up to cup his cheeks. "Tweek, Honey, Babe, Coffee Bean, look at me please." Tweek kept his eyes screwed tight shut. "Look at me, Tweek, please? Tweek please, open your eyes. You can do it, nothing is hurting you right now." The younger of the two had started crying, not balling his eyes out, not yet, but Craig didn't have much time left to calm him down before he started yelling and scaring the rest of the house. "Tweek," He tried again, moving closer to him so that he could whisper into the blond boy’s ear. "Tweek, babe, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I lost control over my emotions right there and I'm sorry. Please, just open your eyes and look at me, Tweek."

The blond finally relented and opened his eyes, leaning back to glare at the black haired boy. His expression softened slightly when he recognized the look of remorse on Craig's face. Tweek ended up just sighing in irritation, leaning his head back onto the taller boy's shoulder. "I really hate you sometimes, Craig Tucker, I swear I do." He wrapped his arms around Craig anyways.

After that, the boys finished moving everything else without a hitch. Craig insisted that Tweek leave the room when he put his bed back together and moved it into its rightful place. When Tweek was finally let in he didn't understand what was so special about the placement of the furniture. "Craig, if you're trying to flatter me by making it seem like you wanted the bed to be framed by the blue and green that I threw there; that was my plan. Your bed wouldn't make sense to be placed anywhere else in here." Craig visibly deflated at his boyriend's bluntness. Tweek gave him a kiss on the cheek anyways for his effort anyway.

Half an hour later, they had the bean bags covered with the new slips. Tweek made sure to keep them all in order so the other guys wouldn't get confused. The five beanbags were sat in front of Craig's tv in a wide semicircle so everyone could see. The closest to the door was Jimmy, then Clyde, Token was in the middle, to his left was Tweek, and then there was Craig, who was closest to Stripe's cage.

"I think it’s time to put the stars in the sky." Tweek said after he finished organizing the bean bags. "What do you think, Stripe?" He bent down and looked into the guinea pig's cage, smiling sweetly at her. Craig smiled and walked over to the cage as well.

"She thinks you're right." He hugged Tweek around the waist as soon as he stood up enough for him to comfortably reach. "She also said that you should turn around and let me kiss you."

"I guess if stripe asked." Tweek chuckled and put the tip of one of his fingers through the cage’s metal bars to pet her head. "We have to cover her eyes though. She's too pure to see that." He threaded his hands through Craig's hair under his hat and then tossed it off onto Stripe’s cage. Craig moved forward slowly, pressing his lips against Tweek's gently. They stayed like that for a few moments before Craig pulled away, a light tinge of pink dusted Craig's tan skin along with his smile.

"You should go and get the step stool so that we both can reach the ceiling." Tweek smirked, proud of being able to make Craig blush so easily. Craig laughed breaking the serene atmosphere in the room.

"Way to ruin the mood, babe." He laughed some more as he shook his head. "But I'll go and get the gnome his step stool." Craig managed to escape the room before Tweek could hit him for calling the him a gnome and grabbed the step stool from the bathroom. When he returned, Tweek was sitting on his bed, doing something on his laptop, "I'm compiling pictures of all of the constellations you never shut up about; and scorpio. You need to have your zodiac sign in there somewhere."

They decided that the constellations don't have to be in the right placement in Craig's ceiling sky. So naturally, Tweek put scorpio over Craig's bed. When Tweek was on the other side of the room sticking delphinus to the ceiling by the door, Craig put sagittarius right next to scorpio above his bed. It took them until almost midnight to finish putting up all of the constellations, and the whole while, Tweek never once noticed his zodiac sitting next to Craig's on their respective sides of the bed. 

Once they were all done, the two of them left the room to get ready for bed. Even after they reentered, Tweek still had to lay directly beneath sagittarius to notice it. "Craig!" He whispered yelled, "You are such a fucking sap!" He started laughing and before he knew it, Ruby was banging on the door telling him to shut the hell up. Tweek wiped one of the tears out of his eyes from laughing to hard and just smiled. "But, Yeah. I don't think I'm going to forget this summer anytime soon, Babe."

**Author's Note:**

> A little fun fact: My dad ships creek with me! so... I gave him a cameo in here. He's the cook at the diner. The two of us also used to work part time at a diner!


End file.
